STUDIES ON THE SPECIFIC SUBSTANCE OF B. MALLEI

Abstract

Since the valuable reports had been published by Heidelberger and Avery (1), many investigators studied the same problem concerning specific substances of various microorganisms, and most authors came to the same conclusion as the first workers, that the type-specific reaction depends upon a soluble substance of a carbohydrate nature which does not give rise to immunity when injected into experimental animals, while the non-specific reaction is due to species-specific protein which induces immunity by injection into animals. In contrast to those early works, Schiemann and Casper(2)(3) suggested the existence of another type-specific substance which was identical in chemical nature with that of Heidelberger and his co-workers but it has such a different property in immunological activity as it gives rise to specific immunity by its injection into mice. From the immunological point of view, it must be considered an important one that those two type-specific substances have a different property in their antigenic activity. Enders(4), also, recently isolated from autolysates of Pneumococcus a type-specific substance distinct from the so-called specific carbohydrate of the first workers. This new substance showed a specific reaction by precipitating the homologous antiserum after absorption with the specific carbohydrate described by Heidelberger and Avery, and also it caused fatal anaphylactic shock in guinea-pigs sensitized passively with homologous rabbit serum. From these observations it is without question that there are two specific substances of a carbohydrate nature which, however, are not the same in their antigenic activity